Health & Safety
Representing manufacturing, production, maintenance and sanitation workers in the baking, confectionery, tobacco and grain milling industries.
bctgm, bakers union, tobacco union, candy union, food workers, food workers union, grain millers, grain millers union, mondelez, nabisco, snack union,
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Trade unions are key to making workplaces safer and healthier for all workers - however, often women's occupational health and safety is not given enough attention. The IUF has now published a resource on integrating gender into workplace health and safety. This resource includes a brief outline of the problem, specific concerns raised by IUF affiliates, and proposals for action. It includes a briefing on do it yourself research including body and hazard mapping, and a...

14 January, 2020

This year we will come together to call for action on hazards that cause unnecessary injury, illness and death. We will stand united against the ongoing attacks on workers' rights and protections and demand that elected officials put workers' well-being above corporate interests. The Occupational Safety and Health Act and Mine Safety and Health Act promise workers the right to a safe job. Unions and our allies have fought hard to make that promise a reality—winning protections...

10 April, 2019

Under the Trump administration, the number of federal workplace safety inspectors has sharply declined. Since President Donald Trump took office, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) lost 40 inspectors through attrition and as of October 2, has not hired new inspectors to fill the vacancies, according to data obtained by NBC News. According the the findings of NBC, the departing inspectors made up 4 percent of the OSHA's total federal inspection force, which fell below 1,000...

10 January, 2018

According to the AFL-CIO, since January, government agencies under the Donald Trump administration have taken steps to hide information from the public—information that was previously posted and information that the public has a right to know. But a recent move is especially personal.  Early this month, the agency responsible for enforcing workplace safety and health—the Occupational Safety and Health Administration—removed the names of fallen workers from its home page and has stopped posting information about workplace deaths on its data...

16 September, 2017

The important worker safety and health gains that the BCTGM and the American labor movement have fought for and won are now threatened. The Trump administration has launched an all-out assault on regulations. The president has ordered that for every new protection, two existing safeguards must be removed from the books. At the same time, Republicans in Congress have moved quickly to overturn new rules issued by the Obama administration. Agency budgets and enforcement programs...

28 April, 2017

Nobody should be in danger for a dollar, but 4,836 people died in 2015 at work from machine malfunctions, equipment failures, falls from construction equipment, and other deadly and preventable causes. More than 50,000 people died from those work-related injuries and illnesses. These are mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, folks who simply worked for a living. Safety has been losing the tug of war with profits for years. Death is the result, and the danger is...

26 April, 2017

The Congressional and White House attacks on worker rights and health and safety continue. On Wednesday March 1, 2017, the House of Representatives passed H.J. Res. 83, a Congressional Review Act Resolution of Disapproval, that would repeal an Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) rule that clarifies an employer’s responsibility to maintain accurate records of serious work-related injuries and illnesses. The Resolution passed 231-191, largely along party lines with the Republicans in support of doing away...

02 March, 2017

WHY ARE FOOD FLAVORINGS A PROBLEM FOR FOOD INDUSTRY WORKERS? Some chemicals may be present in food flavorings that can cause permanent lung damage when inhaled. This danger initially became public when federal investigators identified a serious lung disease in workers exposed to a chemical known as diacetyl, which is used in butter-flavored popcorn production. Workers are also at risk from airborne exposure to other flavoring chemicals used in various settings in the food industry, including...

26 October, 2016

Too many Latino workers face disease, major injury and death while laboring in dangerous jobs with inadequate safeguards. In 2014, 804 Latino workers died on the job, with 64% of these fatalities being Latino workers born outside of the United States. Latino worker deaths recently have decreased even though more Latinos are working in the construction industry than ever before: Nearly 70% of new construction jobs between 2012 and 2015 were filled by Latino workers. The...

22 June, 2016

New federal requirements take effect August 10, 2016 WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration today issued a final rule to modernize injury data collection to better inform workers, employers, the public and OSHA about workplace hazards. With this new rule, OSHA is applying the insights of behavioral economics to improve workplace safety and prevent injuries and illnesses. OSHA requires many employers to keep a record of injuries and illnesses to help these employers and...

11 May, 2016

(Washington, DC, April 27, 2016) – More than 4,820 workers were killed on the job in 2014, according to a new report by the AFL-CIO. Additionally an estimated 50,000-60,000 died from occupational diseases, resulting in a daily loss of nearly 150 workers from preventable workplace injuries and illnesses. “Working people should not have to risk their lives to make a living and support their families,” said AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka. “Yet every day, millions of Americans...

27 April, 2016

Some safety incentive programs are “especially problematic with ergonomic issues,” according to OSHA’s deputy director. Jordan Barab told attendees at the 19th annual Applied Ergonomics Conference in Orlando that it’s difficult to hide an injury like a broken leg, but it’s not as hard to hide a musculoskeletal disorder (MSD). Barab continued a dialog on safety incentive programs that resurfaced when OSHA proposed revisions to its guidelines for Safety Management Systems. In those guidelines, OSHA said companies shouldn’t use safety...

23 March, 2016

More than five years after 29 miners were killed in an explosion at the Upper Big Branch mine in Raleigh County, W.Va., justice was finally served as former Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship was found criminally guilty for a conspiracy to willfully violate the Mine Safety and Health Act. While the tragedy was the largest loss of life in a mine accident in the United States since 1970, numerous other workers have lost their lives in...

03 December, 2015

Obama may join other presidents who have tried and failed to contain industrial dust. OSHA was supposed to finish reviewing public comment on its proposed rule in June. “If OSHA is unable to get out a rule on silica, something with such strong scientific evidence and completely feasible controls, then we can pretty much eliminate the notion that OSHA can get out regulations on any kind of health standard,” says former OSHA legislative analyst Celeste Monforton,...

07 September, 2015

America’s system for preventing worker illnesses and deaths from chemicals, fumes and dust is so broken that OSHA warns companies not to rely on its legal exposure limits to protect employees. The Center for Public Integrity has produced a new series of investigative reports on occupational health hazards and the failure of the government to limit exposures. The first installment, Slow-Motion Tragedy for American Workers, reviews the devastating impacts of exposures to silica and other workplaces toxins,...

30 June, 2015